Kali

[modernsaints]

... This perfume is a blend of the sacred blooms of cassia, hibiscus, musk rose, Himalayan wild tulip, lotus and osmanthus swirled with offertory dark chocolate, red wine, tobacco, balsam and honey.

Oh man. ELEVEN notes, honey is the LAST, and this is still pure honey-powder on me. Just a warning to those who have the same aversion as me; you may think it will be safe! The honey in this is STRONG, though. Woe. Edited April 24, 2008 by Shollin

[eleventhousand]

Whoa. A cacophony of flowers and food and tobacco that settles gently into the exact fragrance of Pantene conditioner.

 

Really.

[bookofblues]

I get musk and wine with a floral undertone from Kali straight from the imp. It's sweet but not cloying, and promises to do well.

After about 5 minutes on the skin, I'm amping the tobacco in this scent like crazy. It smells like I'm wearing perfume in a room full of smokers. Must get it off! Damn! It started out so nicely. Swap away quickly.

[PersephonesChild]

In the imp, it smells boozy in a big way. Red wine and a hint of tobacco smoke, but mostly that alcoholic tinge. The red wine becomes richer and underlayed with a hint of chocolate when it's on my skin, but dries down very quickly to the nutty/creamy cassia scent. Occasionally there's still a boozy tinge to it, but it's kind of intermittent. I wish it was a stronger scent, there's not really that much throw to it once it dries down... I'd been hoping for something stronger.

[mawaridi]

I was a bit nervous about the rose in this scent. All my past experience of rose perfumes have been powdery and dusty and like...somebody's grandmother. But Kali is wet rose, like rose petals that have been mulched up in your hands. Then the honey starts to come out, with an edge of wine, sweet and boozy. It reminds me of a rose-wine-and-honey desert syrup I used to have.

 

I don't like florals, and I picked up Kali because of the chocolate, which I can't smell at all (!). But this is a lush, sweet, sexy floral. It isn't at all what I imagine when I think of Kali Herself, but it's beautiful, nonetheless!

Edited July 24, 2007 by Mawaridi

[dydan]

Call me a market driven ho, but Kali's description was the very reason I wanted to get into BPAL. It could smell like my cat's litter box and I'd go for it. I was tempted to just jump right in and get a big bottle but my boyfriend, ever the sensible one, insisted I get an imp..."just in case".

 

It took a bit of hunting before I saw someone offering up an imp and I jumped on it like a bulemic on a twinkie.

 

OMG I lurrrrrve it!

 

I'm rather surprised by its lightness. By the description and other reviews I expected something a bit "darker". Kali is very sweet. It smelled of sweet night blooming flowers in the bottle and on my skin. I can get a little bit of the honey on the dry down but none of the tobacco is coming through for me.

 

Its definitely sexy and very feminine. I can see myself wearing it and seducing my sensible boyfriend on a hot steamy Texas night. I may have to drag him out to the woods to have my naughty way with him....

 

This one is going to the top of my "Dear Santa" list!

[kopper]

Kali is gorgeous.

 

Wet: I smell the lotus, wine, musk rose, and balsam. Very solid and very sensual.

 

On skin: Out comes the tobacco and honey. The hibiscus dances across the top of the fragrance, and the cassia is barely there but beautiful.

 

Drydown: More honey, more chocolate. LOVE the tulip touch that I'm getting. Will DEFINITELY buy a big bottle of this.

 

I think this scent may get me some love tonight from my Mr. Seven!!! ) WOOT!

[storme]

In the imp: dark, boozy chocolate, very rich and heady.

 

On me, wet: wait, where'd all that richness go? it's stripped right back to light, sweet perfumey florals on my skin.

 

On me, dry: urgh. those sweet florals and a powdery honey note and some heavy booziness lurking beneath.

 

Verdict: No, this is not good on me, I think I shall go scrub this off before the booze really turns my stomach.

[Czarina]

Light, slightly chocolately floral.

 

From the name I expected something much more evil. Sigh.

[hkhm]

imp: i smell chocolate and lots of florals.

 

wet: chocolatey floral booze. the boozey note comes through quite nicely here, then fades back behind the chocolate.

 

dry: the chocolate and booze mix lto something like a chocolate wine while there are soft florals all around. quite unusual.

[The_Merf]

When this is wet, it is a dark chocolate--in fact, it's so creamy/chocolate that I mistook it for coffee (I got the scent confused with another). That's pretty much the dominant note on me. When the scent starts to dry up it does reduce itself to a honey/wine drydown, with more strength to the honey on my skin. However, this is a nice and sweet honey, and not the type of honey that sometimes smells baked or burned or stale on my skin. The wine is much like the note in Lilith. At the very end, the scent becomes a bit powdery (powdery wine drydown is a new one for me!).

[erraticprophet]

A frimp in my last order. A few of the notes in here worry me..

 

Initial Impression: wine, lotus, tobacco

 

On Wet: plastic

 

On Dry: not getting better

 

Final Impression: Kali doesn't like me at all.

 

Rating (on a scale from 1-5): 1

[aleciarivas]

Hm this may take another test before I make a final decision. I definitely get the honey and the wine and the floral- soft floral though. No dark chocolate for me, and no tobacco that I can tell. Soft and sneaky smelling though!

[tziporra]

Wow.

 

Just last night I was asking my husband if maybe "scent love" wasn't something you weren't able to do anymore once you grew up -- like the crushes you have as a teenager are a million times more intense than those you have at thirty. But after 65 bpal tries, this is a scent I love unequivocally, one I could wear every day -- I've fallen hard.

 

Kali doesn't leap out of the bottle at me, which is why I didn't try it right away out of the package. I smell something sweet in the imp.... On my wrist though, the chocolate and wine jump up and grab me in an intense embrace (I didn't remember the notes when I tried it on, but I immediately recognized the booze and cocoa).

 

Then as it begins to dry I get lovely honey and flowers, mostly cassia (in fact, this stung a little on my wrist, but love sometimes is pain), with the chocolate hanging out underneath. No tobacco, which makes me sad -- but maybe at a different hormonal time.

 

The final stage for me is all rose, but not potpourri-rose or powdery rose. Just nice lingering sweet rose. I amp rose, so it figures, but I don't care. The first hour is so gorgeous that the rose stage is a relaxing afterglow to a perfect fragrance experience.

 

I take care of a baby in the mornings, and today when his mom picked him up she immediately said, "he smells so good!" which reminded me of one of the reviews of Kali here -- like a baby after being held by a good-smelling mother. Sigh.

 

Perfection. Beautiful beautiful Kali. The best part about this is it fulfills all my scent fantasies. Perfect rose blend, check! Perfect non-foody chocolate blend, check! Perfect boozy floral blend, check! Deeply complex and changing, check! It's like the Lab had a list of my specifications and the notes that work on me when they whipped this up.

 

Will I buy a big bottle? It's going to be a painful wait till it gets here, is all I have to say.

 

Tzi

 

ETA: I love Kali more every time I wear it. It's definitely my BPAL blend. I wish I could better describe what it smells like, but as others have said, Kali is complex. I guess I can sum it up best thus; Kali is the scent I will wear when we come into money and I am able to afford to shop in those delightful but horrendously expensive "european" linen and kitchen stores. I'll fit right in with the goods.

Edited January 31, 2008 by tziporra

[zankoku_zen]

Oh man, this blend is not for me. Upon application this is just like... olive juice. And then it dries down, and its kinda like dusty boozy florals.

 

This goddess and I are definitely not getting along.

[iiinterstate]

Argh, another bummer for me.

 

I was hoping the other potentially strong notes (especially the tobacco) would come out, but alas, my crazyridiculous skin chemistry will only allow the rose note. bah.

[Lyrical]

In vial: sour, flowers, sweet honey, wine, tobacco ...

 

Wet on skin: honeyed white grapes, flowers and musk. Light and sophisticated. There's no red wine or chocolate though, and only a hint of tobacco. It's like a paler, fresher version of Horreur Sympathique. (Bingo - that's why I chose it!)

 

Dry on skin: after a while the smokiness of the tobacco comes out, but it remains pale, fruity, musky honey. Then it morphs into smoky honey, and the final note is pure honey. Lovely!

 

The second time I wore it, it reminded me of Mr Ibis.

[vintagedlust]

Kali was my first BPAL heartbreak. I REALLY wanted to like this blend!! I have a huge tattoo of Kali on my right arm and she is by far, one of my favorite god/goddess stories out there! Having said that, after trying it, I've discovered that I do not like wine at all. I thought the dark chocolate would balance it out (which is what I experienced with Centzon Totochtin) but between the wine, hibiscus, and tulips my head was spinning.

 

I only tried it once, I may be willing to try an imp after it has sat around for a bit

 

2/5 (2 points because I love Kali and I could smell the chocolate)

[Zeljana]

this is mostly wine and tobacco on my skin. i don't get any chocolate note at all until this is competely dry (it's chocolatey without being foody at all.). I can smell the roses, too.

but, I love it. it's luscious and yummy all over. I don't know why but it is almost an aquatic to me, it just feels wet. it smells like a temple filled with flowers and offerings in the middle of an ancient rainforest.

 

instant love.

 

4.5/5

Edited February 20, 2008 by Kosyena

[arsenicsauce]

It took me three applications to figure out whether or not I liked this. Smells like a wine cooler when wet, or a sticky fruit punch, something very sweet. I started getting a little of the chocolate when it dried down, but not enough to make it worth my while. The florals come out when it's dry too, I can really smell the hibiscus, and the wine got drier and less sickly sweet. Nice scent, but it's a little too rich for me.

[Suu4LC]

The dark chocolate, boozy wine, and honey are the strongest notes for me in the imp. I barely notice the florals, but they are definitely there. I loooove chocolate scents, but haven't found a bpal chocolate blend that works on me yet. I'm not sure this will be it...

 

Once on my skin the notes that had been the strongest, become the weakest, and the florals, tobacco, and balsam come out more. Chocolate is pretty gone.

 

Nope, this isn't for me. To the swaps you go!

[MaxwellDemon]

Chocolate, good wine, fine tobacco, and sex. Kali is like a list of my favorite vices interpreted as a fragrance. Most of the floral notes are very faint, but the osmanthus and hibiscus are noticeable and blend with the red wine note to recreate the feeling of a sweet dessert wine. The honeyed chocolate note is sweet and creamy, not cheap or waxy, and acts as the perfect bridge between Kali's sweeter notes and it's smoky base. While is is a sweeter scent, it's much more mellow and mature than that majority of gourmands I've tried. Overall, it lasts about 8 hours on my skin before softly fading to nothing.

[Honeygirl]

Bottle: Sex

 

Wet: Honey, wine, chocolate are the most prevelent. It's very sexy and smoldering.

 

Drydown: There's a perfumey note that I'm not fond of, but I really like this blend. It's sexy and girly and makes me feel good.

3.0 outta 5

[Lethran]

In bottle: not promising, strangely chemical and vaguely rotton. I think it’s the wine and tobacco not blending well. Wet: similar, but less noxious. I think the honey, balsam, and chocolate strengthen under the influence of my own scent and body heat. The blend improves markedly given time to settle. Then the flowers come out, doing strange things with the elements already there. This stuff morphs fast when it’s fresh. Dry: grapes and dark chocolate with flowers. If anything smells like a Valentine’s date, this would be it. I was not expecting to like this, but it honestly grew on me. I’d still not buy it for myself, but I think I’ll keep the frimp.

[matokie]

Full disclosure: This is the very first BPAL scent I've ever tried. I have a couple orders of imps on their way to me that I picked out based on their names alone, and I'm a definite newbie when it comes to distinguishing notes and that sort of thing. Kali was plucked at random from my best friend's bag o' imps yesterday, and I have to say that first time's the charm!

 

When I sniffed the imp I confess I almost recoiled from what to me was a sticky sweetness. I think the florals combined with the tobacco gave me pause. But I bravely daubed it on my wrists anyway, trusting the goddess in all her complexity.

 

Utter success. On me the florals deepen into a musk with swirling rich undertones I imagine could be from the balsam and the tobacco again. I reapplied this morning and think it might actually be too heavy for a daylight scent, but absolutely perfect for, say, a hot date.

 

Just this weekend I watched the Bollywood film Sholay, and in it one of the main characters, Jai, quietly falls in love with the widow Radha, whose home he is staying in while he helps her father-in-law. I imagine that Radha wears a complicated scent like Kali that lingers in the air for a moment after she leaves a room, and that it's part of the reason Jai finds her irresistible.